Origins!

The last week in June was Origins Game Fair, a four day gaming convention in Columbus, Ohio. A group of my friends and I go every year and it’s always a good time. This year didn’t disappoint in the slightest.

Thursday – Day 1

I was helping Privateer Press run a Warmachine/Hordes tournament so I had to be at the convention center around 9am. I got my badge and my pre-reg tickets (not a fun prospect this year) and was the Co-tournament organizer for the morning and most of the afternoon. After the tournament was finished I wandered through the Dealer‘s Hall seeing if there was anything that I wanted/needed to buy. In the end, I went ahead and picked up the new Risk’s and Rewards card for ATZ by Two Hour Wargames. As an added bonus, I got Red Sand, Blue Sky for half off. There has been a lot of talk of that game on the yahoo board and I could pass up the 50% off sale!

The only game I played in before heading to sleep was Assault on Vault 51. It’s a fallout scenario using the Mutant’s and Death Rays rule set produced by Ganesha Games. It had a wonderful looking terrain and the game was well thought out and provided a ton of enjoyment. I am going to keep my thoughts and game recap to a minimum since I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who is going to play in it. After the game it was around midnight and since I woke up at 5 am to get to the convention on time, I didn’t feel all that bad for cutting out early.

Some of the beautiful terrain used in the Assault on Vault 51 game!

Spending: $20

Friday – Day 2

I got to the game room a bit early so I had some time to kill. As I was wondering around, a game of Deathrace (based off the Warlands system) was starting and even though I told them I couldn’t stick around for the while race, I jumped in. The rules are quite simple and the game itself was a lot of fun. I was bumped by a car during the first turn and that player managed to do a critical that killed my driver. It turns out with all the crashing and bumping that no car survived to the first ‘curve’. I was killed by my awesome ram in the back of two vehicles (after using nitro of course).

If you look closely, there is a car barely over the start/finish line (way behind yellow), that's me!

Again I was helping run a Warmachine/Hordes tournament. This only was a 2 caster/’lock, 50 point beast/warjack and it was a whole lot of fun to watch. Since we had an odd number of players and the second TO left to hang with his father for a round, I even got to play a Haley/Striker list against a Cryx player. Due to the number of players, the tournament ended a bit early so I spent the remainder of my time wandering about the game hall before my game that night. I picked up a couple of block die from Impact miniatures and some counters from Litko (http://www.litkoaero.com/)

In the evening, I played in an “Adventures in Lost Lands” game (by Two hour wargames) ran by Ed himself. There were 8 players so we split into two groups of 4 (with a bearer apiece). This game was a lot of fun. For some reason, the fates were against my side and we had to deal with a couple of feeder dino’s (which we wounded and sent towards the other group), Trogs (which we handled without any issues), Early Man (who surprised us and kill most of our team’s bearers) and second dino (who turned out to be a meat eater). We managed to kill it, but one of us was wounded in the process.

See the other dino's flee in the wake of KONG!

While trying to skin that dino (to prove their existence), three PEF (that’s possible Enemy force) showed up right on top of us… One of those PEF turned out to be King Kong! I fled when he came “In sight” but the others fled when Kong went after one of our hunters. Of course, we flee towards the other group and after losing one of their hunters, manage to kill Kong (amazing die rolls I might add). I didn’t make it off the table. I was attacked by the other of those PEFs after Kong ran through and we grouped back up. A great game!

Afterwards, I found a group just starting Red Dragon Inn and sat down to play. It was great fun and I even managed to win the game allowing me to have a chance at a prize. I rolled amazing (a 17 on a d20) and got Street Illegal for free.

Spending: $25 (but I knew I was buying Warlands when I came home)

Saturday – Day 3

This day was jammed pack with gaming starting at 8 am and heading straight through until 4pm. First up was “Wings of War” with miniatures. I really enjoyed the game with its simple rules and quick play. Due to an error in scheduling, a second group of people showed up to play at 9am and we all just played a huge 4 on 4 battle. Great fun… I can’t remember the young lady that showed us how to play, but I can tell you that she was a fighting ace taking down at least 4 planes in the short time we played… Even got me on turn two (took 4 damage cards that were enough to destroy my plane).

After that, it was time for some Savage Showdown in the Iron Dynasty campaign setting. The book is not out, but they are hopeful for Gencon. When I signed up, I wasn’t so excited about the setting since it’s ancient Japan with steampunk included, but I couldn’t find any other Savage Worlds non-RPG so I figured I’d take a stab at it. The game was a lot of fun even if my side (with the designer no less) didn’t manage to win. Each team had a clockwork vehicle of some sort, a magician of some sort (a wild card) and a couple of units (some samurai and some ‘shooters’. I was playing the vehicle (which tried to go toe-to-toe with the other vehicle and was destroyed). The system plays great as a skirmish wargame, but the point system can be easily abuse. I figured that I enjoyed the rule changes and the game enough that I’ll probably pick that up in the end.

The two steampunk vehicles command respect (at least their's did).

Final scheduled game for the day was a Battlestations game called Bot Wars ran by one of the designers (Jeff instead of Jason) and it was a hoot. There newest release is a mini-campaign where the bots have gone crazy and are attacking the humans (and the rest technically). We barely managed to survive the game. The only major beef with the convention games is that the returning characters can be a pick strong which really can have a huge impact. Our game was super rough since we had a level 6 pilot that was awesome at flying the ship, but the scenario we played was all about fighting robots. A friend of mine said his game was a mess since they had a level 6 marine who single-handedly fought most of the robot attackers! I’m glad that our game wasn’t that one-sided.

After that, it was back to the dealer’s room to again look about. Due to how much fun I had playing the Lost Lands game, I picked up a bunch of prehistoric models (mostly dinos, but I did pick up some prehistoric men).

Most of Saturday night was a trip to the Sausage house that we always go to. It’s has an all you can eat brat buffet with all the fixings. My only gripe (and it’s minimal at best) is that I eat too much good German food and am a mess for the remainder of the night (it’s also disheartening to leave the convention for ~2 hours, but I wouldn’t miss “Sausage Fest” for anything).

When I got back to the convention, a friend of mine (Justin) bought All Thing Zombie including some Rebel Mini 15mm zombies/survivors. Since we had some free time and didn’t have anything lined up, we put together a little scenario and played through the game. It was a bit rough to remember all the rules and such (it’s one thing to read the rules, it quite another to actually explain and play it). Still, with a lot of page flipping, we got through the game pretty well. Both of us had a Rep 5 survivor (star) and a Rep 4 grunt so things weren’t as bad as they could have been (like lower rep civies). I think we ran into only a couple of minor problems on our trek across the board (to a car park).

Spending: $60

Sunday – day 4

I had a single game lined up due to one getting cancelled. It was another from Ganesha Games called Song of Armies and Hordes. I wasn’t going to play this since I’m not a big fan of large scale battles, but in the end I stuck it out and played in it anyways. In the end, I’m glad I did; using their activation mechanic made famous in their “Song of…” series, it played fast and fun. Honestly, there were just a couple of minor changes to the core mechanic, but really made the game a lot of fun.

The Dwarven and Elves clash!

Afterwards, I went back into the dealer’s room for some last minute buys. I first picked up a copy of Bot Wars complete with autograph! Next, I picked up three boxes of Starship Trooper models (costing 5 dollars a box), a dreadnaught for my ‘space marines’ (I have a couple of squads from Space Hulk) and some of the Iron Kingdoms RPG miniature line (including a bridge troll for use in Blood Bowl). If that wasn’t enough, I bought more dinos and lions for gladiator gaming (when I finish reading the book of course).

Spending: $80

Somewhere in there I played in a Leviathans demo from Catalyst games. It has some really cool ideas to it and I can’t wait to see some of the finished product. I wish I would have taken more pictures of it since my memory is fuzzy on when I actually played it. The system is easy. You pick a weapon that has a color code which coincides with a die type (I’m told that the polyhedron dice are ‘weighted’). To that add any addition dice for ‘crew’ (green die) and a die from the target (its speed & trajectory). With those dice, a final normal d6 is rolled to determine location (much like in Warmachine for the column). Sum the value on the dice and check to see if equals or exceeds the armor value in that space that location is damaged and whatever was ‘there’ is gone. I guess the idea is the hull of the ships are standard, but the ‘slots’ for each ship are going to be customizable. We will see once it gets closer to release on the full rules and the like. If I didn’t have a bunch of other game systems sitting in the house, I’d probably get into it.

Final Thoughts:

Origins Game Fair is always a fun time and if you can make it, I recommend going. Nothing many of the big game companies there, but don’t let that stop you. The dealer’s room has more than enough stuff to keep a gamer like me happy and the games being played are always fun to watch and play! I can’t wait until next year.

Boardgames!

Of course I made this blog mainly to play miniatures games, but I decided that I could also use it to record other gaming (like board games) that I do. Honestly, I should probably log plays and even session reports on http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ but I rarely actually do that for some odd reason.

So enough explaining the new plan...

Lets talk about some gaming! I found a simple game called The d6 Shooters on BBG a while ago, but never played it much. In the process of cleaning some stuff, I refound it and in a moment of boredom I figured that I play it a couple of times. Simply put The d6 Shooters is a modification of the classic game of yatzee where you roll a number of dice (8 in the case of this game) and have three chances to get the 'best' possible round.

The object of the game is to move an outlaw from one city (Pyrite) to a second (Reno) in 40 days (aka rounds). The key is that the dice are in two colors and three of them can be 'locked' if you roll either a 5 or 6 on the first roll (both those numbers are bad for you). It's a simple game, but quite entertaining! I played three games and the first two were dismal showings (funny that a made it to the city of Thompson and then killed by the outlaw's gang both times).

My third game went a lot better and I actually made it to Reno and won the game with 44 points. I can't tell you if that is a good score, but at least I won. If you have a couple of minutes to kill, 8d6 dice (in two colors), a pen and the score sheet (a single sheet of paper), I completely recommend it!

the d6 shooters

Privateer Press - Leaderboard

As you might not know, I am a press ganger for Privateer Press (a volunteer that promotes their game and runs events). To that effect the last couple of weeks/months, my gaming time have been used to get things ready on that end.

The first was getting ready for a tournament at the local game store. One of the scenarios requires the use of flags for objectives. I quickly whipped up some (aka 18) for the game!

As you can see, I ran out of time for the actual flags and just had to use white paper with the Privateer Press faction symbols on them. The rest of the flag was quite simple. The base was coated in my 'basing material' (the road crews in my town use sand/dirt for the roads instead of salt. After the snow melts and the sand/dirt dries, I go and get a couple of scoops, sift out the bad stuff and volia - cheap rocks for bases) and spray painted black.

For most of my bases, I start with a basecoat of dark brown, followed by a dry brush of light brown and finally a dry brush of tan. Nothing fancy and it works. The only issue is that I have to do my 'basing' prior to the spray painting the model or it takes a bunch more time. I need to buy some pre-painted basing material for when I get the miniature done prior to the base.

The flag pole is a dowel rod cut to ~2 inch pieces, also sprayed in black primer followed by a brown and then a red/brown ink. All in all, they came out great and I really need to have more objective games so I can use them! :)

The next warmachine/Hordes project was for the Nightfall League. It started a couple of days after the tournament and most of my energy has been going into that (I mean, I'm playing my Trolls two or three times a week). The one thing that needed to be finished for the league was a ladder board. My local game store didn't have one so I took it upon myself to make one. Here is the end result...

The board started as a 2' x 2' one half inch oak board that I had Lowes cut into half. Then, I (and my dad) cut the 0.25 inch slits for the cards to fit into (the slits are 3.5 inches). Finally, I added a 0.5 inch square dowel rod to the top and sides so the board would sit out from the wall. The board was stained twice with a minwax and two miniature hooks were added to allow a piece of paper at the bottom (to show what league is currently going on). I think I am going to tweek a couple of things once the league is finished, but for now, it is a nice little piece that in currently hanging up at the game store.

How am I doing in the league, you ask. As of Friday, I was in second (tied with first in points), but I'm sure that I have fallen off since games were going to happen on Saturday.

35 point Warmachine Army - Color on the metal!

In an effort to ensure that I meet one of my missions this year, I am planning this early so I can have a lot of time to finish it. Since I have a new army, I figured that I would go with the Retribution for my choice (I really should paint pirates, but I'm scared of the number of solos)!

35 Points:
Ravyn, Eternal Light (*6pts)
* Griffon (4pts)
* Phoenix (10pts)
Dawnguard Invictors (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
* Dawnguard Invictor Officer & Standard (2pts)
House Shyeel Battle Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios (3pts)
Ghost Sniper (2pts)
Ghost Sniper (2pts)
House Shyeel Magister (2pts)

First mission is that I'm going to need to purchase two Ghost Sniper models (not really an issue - I need them for the army anyways). Then a paint scheme. I really don't like the official white - that's not true, I don't think I can make te white look cool.. In that end, I'm looking for something different. I really want to do Black/Orange, but I don't think painting-wise I can pull it off.

Saving Private Ryan - the Return!

The heroes make their way back to Death’s Hill with the evil statue (smaller now due to the loss of Flashfire).

The first two turns go without much incident. The statue creates a guard on each turn and the heroes move up slowly (The three slow moving models are now in a group and are being ‘commanded’ by Jareth).

On the third turn, the statue fails to create a guard even with a hero reroll. Most of the heroes again move forward, but Xaria casts a 3 power transfix which does nothing and Erdan shoots, but does nothing.

On the fourth turn, the statue creates a guard, but uses the final hero reroll in the process. Xaria casts a magical bolt and Erdan shoots, but again nothing happens.

See what strategy can do for the game - Go Leaders!

On the fifth turn, the statue makes a fourth guard. The slow-moving group has finally made it to the edge of the hilltop. Xaria again tries to transfix and Erdan tries to shoot a guard to no effect (I’m seeing a pattern here).

The sixth turn happens with the statue creating a guard and Jareth failing 2 dice on his activation ending the turn. Thankfully, the seventh turn, the statue does nothing. Pip, Selena and Durgon move onto the hilltop and Xaria fails to cast a spell and the momentum shifts (she failed 2 activation dice).

The eight turn sees the first hero death as Pip falls to his aggressor (the classic 1 against a 6 - 3+1 v 3+6). The statue transfixes Selena. Durgon kills the fallen guard (that Selena knocked down) and Selena shakes off the transfix effect, but little else happens (Xaria casts a low powered bolt, but the guard is unaffected – and ends the turn in the process).

The ninth turn has a guard knock down Selena, but no other guards manage to exploit the opening (I thankfully rolled a lot of ones for the guards) and the statue fails to do anything. Selena stands up while Xaria fails to transfix the nearest guard. Durgon and Erdan climb to the top of the hilltop.

If I lose one more model, I'll have to take a morale check.

Turn 10: Selena is powerfully attacked and is killed (with a second guard in contact and the powerfully attack, it was 0 to 3 in favor of the guard). The guard to attack Durgon rolls snake eyes and the turn ends there for the statue. Durgon kills the guard in combat with him with a powerful attack.

Turn 11: Durgon is attacked twice, but is pushed back and then pushes his second attacker back. The statue tries and fails to entangle Erdan. All heroes are now on the hilltop.

Turn 12: The first guard moves but can’t attack Durgon. The second guard powerfully attacks Durgon, but is knocked down in the process. The Statue fails to make a guard.

If we can get rid of these two guards, we might have a chance!

Erdan kills the fallen guard, but fails to make his terror check and can’t move into melee with the statue (he moves to help Durgon with the last guard instead). Xaria casts a powerful transfix spell at the statue and even with its magic resistance, it fails the roll and is transfixed! Jareth makes his move and attacks the transfixed statue with a powerful attack but fails to destroy the mighty statue. Durgon knocks down the final guard.

Turn 13: The guard stands but does nothing else while the statue remains transfixed. Erdan knocks down the guard again and this time can move into melee with the statue. Durgon kills the final guard and moves into melee with the statue. Jareth again tries to defeat the statue, but fails.

Turn 14: The statue fails to recover from the spell and Durgon destroys the statue with a powerfully attacks (6+3 v 5+3).

Injuries:
Pip: Serious Injury
Selena: Full recovery

I get 30 gold for winning the scenario! However, the scenario states that I should get 20xp for destroying the statue and 4xp per guard. In the base campaign rules, that would be 40xp. If you include the 8 guards I killed in the first game (can’t believe that I killed that many guards), I should have about 72xp or 144 points to buy characters with – almost three times what I can do with my current funds.

So, to update this scenario to the campaign rules in Song of Deeds and Glory (if I may be so bold), I’m going to state that killing the statue is worth an extra 1d6x5 gold coins and each guard killed is worth a single gold (perhaps there were some precious gems used in the rituals)... With my dice rolls, that’s an extra 30 gold for the second game (If you think about it, my average with 5 guards killed would be (~57.5 gold and a campaign point, close to the purchase power of 40xp). If you add the 8 gold from the guards killed in my first time, I have a total of 83 gold.

In searching the surrounding lands, we stumbled upon an old alehouse which we manage to cut a deal with the proprietor and will always have a stock of ale if we need it. Durgon all shook up about the loss of Flashfire and injured forgot about the ale we found, but decides to learn the trade from the current brewmaster and is making some pretty good ale (added the special Brewmaster to Durgon).

With my stash of gold I recruit a human warrior (Q3+ C3) for 30 gold and a human barbarian (Q3+ C3 – Fearless, Giant Slayer) for 42 gold which leaves me with 11 gold. With the campaign point, I purchase “Retaining the Initiative”.

The experience: This scenario is still fun and worth a second go. First of all, I rolled a lot better this time. There weren’t as many turnovers as in the first game and I think that was in part me remembering to use a group move for the slower lower quality characters. I had to take a chance with my heroes when I first went on the hill and I paid the price really early. Losing two characters so quickly made me pretty worried about the ending (lethal against personalities is scary, but really makes this scenario shine). With only 4 members left another death would have been a morale check and we saw what that could do. In the end, casting a transfix spell on the statue was what really won the day.

Song of Saving Private Ryan - Game 1

I located a four scenario campaign called Song of Saving Private Ryan by Aleksandar Saranac for the Song of Blades and Heroes rule set. It turns out that it is to be played solo (the rules have how the enemy warband is to be played). I decided to go ahead and try the first scenario since I hadn’t heard of anyone trying the games from the yahoo group. To that end, I worked a new warband using my knowledge of a couple games and my idea to play them in the new campaign system (found in Song of Deeds and Glory). Before I pass judgment on the campaign rules, I wanted to try them out a couple of times.

You know things aren't going to end well when you can roll a die cocked without anything in the way!

Here are the new Saviors of the Savage Lands:

Jareth - Personality (60)
Quality 3+, Combat 3
Special Rules: Leader

Xaria - Personality (38)
Quality 4+, Combat 2
Special Rules: Magic-User

Erdan (50)
Quality 3+, Combat 3
Special Rules: Forester, Shooter: Long

Flashfire (56)
Quality 4+, Combat 3
Special Rules: Animal, Blast, Flying

Durgon (50)
Quality 3+, Combat 4
Special Rules: Fearless, Heavy Armor, Short Move

Pip (23)
Quality 4+, Combat 2
Special Rules: Free Disengage, Shooter: Short, Short Move, Stealth

Selena (23)
Quality 4+, Combat 3
Special Rules: Free Disengage, Short Move

Warband changes: The first major change is the addition of a seventh member. Due to the fact that in the campaign rules your starting number of models determines the maximum number allowed, I wanted to add an extra character. I’ve also noticed that a ‘horde’ of models is not necessarily a bad thing either when trying to gang up on someone. This allows me to have 14 models if I ever get that big. Of course that means that Erdan had to lose a point of combat and Pip lost both a combat and a quality to make room. The biggest change is to Flashfire having to rework the specials and combat around to get a better quality. It remains to be seen if Blast is worth the points.

Changes to the scenario one: I couldn’t find anything to use as the flat hilltop that was suitable so I changed the hilltop to be 12x12 inch (30x30 cm). This allowed me to use a piece of cork laying about the basement. Other than that, I went ahead and played the scenario as written.

One thing I noticed is that I have very little in terms of ‘trash’ terrain: rubble, boulders, hedges, trees and the like. Perhaps that should be my winter month mission since it is barely 60 degrees in the basement at the moment.

Turn 1: The Statue rolls two successes and creates a skeletal guard. All is looking good until Flashfire fails 2 activation dice and the two Halflings don’t get to go!

Turn 2: Statue creates a second guard. Both guard hold position. The uphill climb is taking its toll on the heroes, especially those with short moves! Flashfire (not surprisingly) rolls three ones for activation and stays put.

Turn 3: Statue fails to create a guard (failing on the reroll as well). Erdan aims and fires at a Guard with no effect (1+2 v 2+3), Durgon moves slowly up and Pip fails to activate enough to move (passes the turn in the process).

Turn 4: Statue creates a third guard and all guards hold position. Jareth fails to activate on snake eyes!

The two halflings are lagging behing the rest of the group

Turn 5: Statue creates a fourth guard. Selena fails to active enough to move which causes a turnover.

Turn 6: Statue creates a fifth guard (using its last hero reroll). All heroes move closer except for Erdan (turnover on Xaria’s turn).

Turn 7: Statue gets two successes and creates a sixth guard. There are heroes within a long band of it so there is a chance that it will try to entangle if it gets three successes on its activation. Erdan aims and fires at a Guard but again with no effect (1+3 v 2+6). Xaria casts a magical bolt at a guard (1+2 v 3+2), but the guard shrugs off the attack. Durgon finally makes on the hilltop and Flashfire blasts into two guards with no damage (3+4 v 3+5 v 3+6). Pip moves closer, but Selena stays put.

Turn 8: Two guards move and attack Flashfire and both are knocked down for their trouble (3+4 v 3+2 and 2+6 v 3+4), but the third guard manages to kill Flashfire (1+3 v 3+5). A guard moves to attack Durgon, but is pushed back (4+5 v 3+5). The statue has nothing within entangle range so creates another guard! Erdan moves into melee with a fallen guard causing a gruesome kill (5+6 v 2+1), but all the undead are a high enough quality that all morale checks automatically pass... Durgon pushes his opponent back with a powerful attack (4+5 v 2+4). Xaria casts a magical bolt at the other fallen guard but doesn’t kill it (0+5 v 3+3).

Durgon is managing to keep alive with overwealming odds. How long can it last?

Turn 9: The fallen guard stands and moves into melee with Erdan. A guard moves and attacks Durgon but is knocked down (4+6 v 3+5). A second guard moves in and attacks (3+ 3 v 3+3 ), followed by a third guard who attacks (2+2 v 3+3) and pushes Durgon back! Durgon moves back into melee and kills the fallen guard (6+ 3 v 3+5). Erdan gets pushed back from his attack on a guard (3+2 v 2+5). Xaria tries to transfix one of the guards, but it manages to shrug off the spell (3 powered spell, but no 1s rolled).

Turn 10: Durgon is attacked by a guard (4+3 v 3+2) and pushes it back. A second guard attacks but both are evenly matched (4+1 v 3+2) followed by a third guard that attacks (3+3 v 3+4), but his heavy armor saves him! The statue fails to do anything. Durgon gets a single success (out of three mind you) and does nothing. The turn passes.

Turn 11: Both guards powerfully attack Durgon, but nothing happens (2+6 v 3+5 and 2+5 v 3+4) and the statue still does nothing. Xaria transfixes a guard (another 3 point spell that a guard fails), but Erdan fails to kill it (5+1 v 2+6). Durgon kills one of the guards attacking him (3+5 v 2+2). Both Pip and Selena move closer to the action and Selena tries a shot, but it is highly ineffective (-2+4 v 3+6).

Turn 12: The transfixed guard can’t shake off the effects, but a guard finally manages to kill Durgon (3+1 v 3+6). The statue finally creates a new guard. Erdan again tries to kill the transfixed guard but fails again (5+2 v 2+5). Xaria tries to transfix another guard, but moves a bit forward instead (the turn switches however).

Turn 13: The transfixed guard shakes off the effect and the statue creates a new guard. Erdan pushes the warrior back (3+5 v 3+3) and Xaria casts a low power transfix spell, it manages to work on a guard (rolled a single power spell and it works, but at the cost of the turn).

Turn 14: A guard moves and attacks Erdan, but is killed in the process (3+6 v 3+1), but another guard takes his place. The transfixed guard is still transfixed, but the statue finally can cast a entangle spell powerful enough to hit Erdan who fails the check!

The heroes are slowly losing their numbers and their foothold on the hilltop.

Erdan easily shakes off the effect, but does little else. Xaria casts a powerful transfix spell, but the guard resists. Pip finally makes it to the battle and attacks the transfix model, but can’t strike true (5+3 v 3+6). Selena moves up, but she and Jareth do nothing.

Turn 15: In a lucky break (hopefully), the transfixed guard rolls snake eyes ending their turn early! Pip powerfully attacks the transfixed guard killing it (5+4 v 2+4). Erdan also kills a guard with a powerful attack (3+4 v 2+1). Xaria tries a low powered transfix, but fails.

Turn 16: A guard moves and pushes Erdan back (3+4 v 3+5), but the guard that attacked Pip does nothing (3+2 v 3+2). Xaria again transfixes a guard, but Erdan fails to kill it (5+1 v 3+4). Pip knocks down the guard in front of him (3+4 v 2+2) and Jareth moves on the platform killing it due in part of Pip’s ‘distractions’ (5+3 v 2+5)!

Turn 17: The first guard shakes the transfix spell and the second guard moves into melee with Jareth while the statue makes another guard. Erdan attacks, pushing back his foe (3+5 v 1+5) and moves to aid Jareth. Selena fails to activate and causes a turnover (this could be the end)!

Turn 18: The guard attacks Jareth, but is pushed back (2+5 v 2+2). Erdan is pushed back by the other guard (2+4 v 3+5) and the third guard knocks him down (3+5 v 3+6). The statue makes a fourth guard. Erdan stands up and powerfully forces a guard down (3+2 v 2+2). The turn ends with Selena (rolled double 1s).

Turn 19: The guard moves into contact and attacks Erdan but is repelled (2+5 v 3+2). Selena is attacked but strikes her foe down (2+6 v 3+3). The fourth guard moves to an open position against Erdan and knocks him down (2+4 v 3+4). The statue entangles Selena. Erdan gets up, but does nothing else. Selena breaks free of the entangle spell, but gets knocked down by her foe (4+4 v 3+6). Jareth moves against the fallen guard and kills it (5+3 v 2+1). Pip moves to protect Selena and manages to beat back a guard in the process (3+3 v 2+3).

Turn 20: Erdan holds his own against a guard (3+3 v 3+3) and Pip knocked down the first guard, but get knocked down himself by the second guard (3+4 v 3+3 and 2+5 v 3+6). The statue doesn’t do anything. Erdan and the guard exchange blows (3+5 v 2+6) while Pip just gets up (the momentum shifts).

Turn 21 (whew): The fallen guard arises and Pip is gruesomely killed by the other (1+1 v 3+5). Most of the warband flee (Xaria's at the edge of the board). Thankfully, that is not 50% of the warband yet. Erdan is pushed back by the guard (3+2 v 3+5) and the statue does nothing. Erdan moves back and attacks (3+5 v 2+4) pushing the guard back. Xaria moves closer, but the momentum shifts (again).

Turn 22: Erdan is attacked by all three guards. The first moves and is knocked down (3+2 v 3+1), the second is also knocked down (2v6 v 3+3) and the third is pushed back (1+5 v 3+1). Erdan attacks but doesn’t kill a guard (4+1 v 2+5). Xaria inches closer, but again the game shifts.

Turn 23: Erdan is knocked down (2+5 v 3+6) by the first guard and is gruesomely killed by the third guard (1+4 v 5+5). The two resulting morale checks have the remaining heroes flee off the board.

Injuries:
Durgon: Moderate Injury
Erdan: Full Recovery
Flashfire: Dead
Pip: Full Recovery

I manage to find 15 gold. At least all remaining characters gain an experience point. I also explore the countryside about Death’s Hill (and it is now being referred to) and find a lone keg (Durgon is quite happy).

The experience: I really liked this scenario. It was quite fun and was really tense throughout the game. I’m amazed at how many turnovers I had. I know that I should expect a couple throughout the game, but there were a couple times that it was just crazy! When most of my warband fled, I should have had Erdan also move back, but I was really getting tired since in the end, him being unsupported killed him (gruesomely I might add). Thankfully a gruesome kill doesn’t automatically kill a character in the campaign or I’d be done for (or if it does, I can’t find it).

2009 Year in review - thoughts for 2010?

I really didn't want to put a 'year in review' in my gaming blog since it seems so cliche. But then again, perhaps it will spark me to get off my butt and get moving on more gaming.


My plan for 2009 was to play two games a month for a total of 24 games. I logged only 10 actual games over 17 messages. It seems like I am way off and that I don't play very many games (which is true), but these numbers don't include all of my Warmachine/Hordes that I played on Thursdays or the Bloodbowl league that started last year (3 wins, 0 losses). Except for a few miniatures, I really didn't paint anything either.

Enough excuses... The simple truth is that I need to formulate a plan and stick to it.

So the 2010 plan
I think I can get to the two games a month so I will try to make my goal be 24 games. Also, I am going to look into getting a couple of genre finished so I can play games in those.

Mission 1: I am starting to get everything I need to play post-modern and modern horror (aka zombies). That means a lot of miniatures to assemble and paint. Honestly I have about 50 zombies that need to be put together and a handful of modern hunters that need some paint. Should be easy!

Mission 2: Space fleets - I have a lot of spaceships about, but I don't have anything really complete. My mission here is to go through the two GZG fleets that I have and redo them (possiblity with a new paint scheme). Then work through fleets of about 1000 - 2000 points in the different iconic Sci-Fi films about for Starmada. I had a lot of fun running the Starmada games at Origins and want to do that again.

Mission 3: Terrain - I have a collection of half finished terrain projects in the collection and I really want to get those done. When I didn't have space or the need, it was different, but I'd like to clean up that part of the basement and finish some terrain

Mission 4: Painting - I have a lot of miniatures that aren't painted. I'm not looking to complete the whole list, but perhaps I should get to painting some of my Warmachine/Hordes stuff. As well as the other things I've bought along the way.

Mission 5: Use or lose - I need to go through my collection of miniatures and clear out stuff that I'm not going to need or play. I have a lot of micro armor still in the boxes that I need to paint or get rid of (perhaps both). I also have a some 15mm stuff that needs to go.

Okay, that's it for now...